Ignition hours vs. actual engine hours

bensdad

New Member
Mar 12, 2012
1
Pensacola, FL
Boat Info
197 Sea Ray 400 Sedan Bridget
Engines
4.7L Mercruisers 380 x 2 HP
I have my 1997 Sedan Bridge 400 (gas) for sale in Kemah, Texas and had a potential buyer get a mechanic to examine the engines carefully. The mechanic reported that the engine hours were actually about 150 hours LESS than the hours shown on the instrument panel on the bridge.

This excited my buyer because this would be his first "big" boat and he was apprehensive over 20 year old gas engines with (gauge reading on the bridge) 1100+ hours on them.

The mechnic explained it like turning on your car's ignition to play the radio or raise the windows without actually starting the engine.

In my case, this model Sea Ray has ignition switches on a panel inside the salon and only toggle switches on the bridge to start the engines. Since no one ever told me differently, I assumed this was a fail safe feature (and maybe it is) so that no one could just jump on board and start the engine from the bridge.

Well, we anchor out a lot with no danger of someone jumping aboard to start it, so I just leave the ignition switches in the salon "on" because that gives me one less thing to think about when we're ready to pull anchor and leave.

However, that apparently ran the helm hours gauges higher than what was actually on the engines and it made my new buyer very apprehensive about the "old" engines with high hours on them.

So my point in all of this is to warn any other owners whose ignition is similar to mine to be aware that the clock on the bridge starts running when you switch on the ignition in the salon whether you start the engines or not. I have given them an artificially high engine hour count unnecessarily if I had only realized that's how it works.

Just a word to the wise........

Dick Grimes, "Forever Young" Kemah, Texas
 
Fortunately, in the later years, the issue has been resolved...at least on boats like mine. There are now two timers, engine hours, and ignition on...on my boat anyway, the ignition on time can be reset. The engine hour meter only is active during actual running of the engine.
 
On my boat the hour meter only runs when the engines are actually on, it does not accumulate hours if key is on and the motors are off.
 

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